I don't like you, Poetry

Title: I don’t like you, Poetry

I don’t like you, Poetry
You’re fine for reading alone
enjoying the images and the word play,
but together in a class?
You remind me of all the jabs from professors:
“Why is this significant?
What does it mean?
What is the Author saying?”
“Maybe exactly what is written is what was meant.”
My answer was never right; I was never right
Haunted by visions of men tearing out insubstantial hair while wondering what kind of fool scholars be we
No, Poetry, I can’t like you
Not as long as you make me be stupid

The old dead only immortal through their thoughts and words would be one thing
They can’t laugh when I’m wrong
Not like my contemporaries who think me
A dried up, prudish, spinster
Poetry, you didn’t defend me that day as I gushed about the imagery.
Is it my fault that spelunking is just like lesbian sex?
Militant feminist lesbian—I’d like to make sure she got left in a non-metaphorical cave somewhere!
Militant feminist lesbian—aren’t I your sister too?
But she and Poetry shut me up for years after laughing at my naïveté.
No, Poetry, I can’t like you
Not as long as you mock me.

Note: I don’t know if that is a good stopping point or if I should continue onto a third verse redeeming Poetry? After all, my hang-ups aren’t Poetry’s fault. I think I will stop it there. Come back in a sequel to redeem Poetry.

So this is my poem explaining my great avoidance of poetry. I wanted it to turn out to be Expansive, but it went confessional instead. Two separate semesters and two separate classes, but both events convinced me I was too stupid to understand poetry, poets were to make me look stupid, and I should stick with prose where I am in the club. I managed to stay away from poetry for years. My one exception was for a story and I only managed that because I told myself I would respond with “It sounds better in the original Greek” to anyone who laughed. It’s been seven years since that one.